Georgics

Virgil

Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.

  1. Of sickness, too, the causes and the signs
  2. I'll teach thee. Loathly scab assails the sheep,
  3. When chilly showers have probed them to the quick,
  4. And winter stark with hoar-frost, or when sweat
  5. Unpurged cleaves to them after shearing done,
  6. And rough thorns rend their bodies. Hence it is
  7. Shepherds their whole flock steep in running streams,
  8. While, plunged beneath the flood, with drenched fell,
  9. The ram, launched free, goes drifting down the tide.
  10. Else, having shorn, they smear their bodies o'er
  11. With acrid oil-lees, and mix silver-scum
  12. And native sulphur and Idaean pitch,
  13. Wax mollified with ointment, and therewith
  14. Sea-leek, strong hellebores, bitumen black.
  15. Yet ne'er doth kindlier fortune crown his toil,
  16. Than if with blade of iron a man dare lance
  17. The ulcer's mouth ope: for the taint is fed
  18. And quickened by confinement; while the swain
  19. His hand of healing from the wound withholds,
  20. Or sits for happier signs imploring heaven.
  21. Aye, and when inward to the bleater's bones
  22. The pain hath sunk and rages, and their limbs
  23. By thirsty fever are consumed, 'tis good
  24. To draw the enkindled heat therefrom, and pierce
  25. Within the hoof-clefts a blood-bounding vein.
  26. Of tribes Bisaltic such the wonted use,
  27. And keen Gelonian, when to Rhodope
  28. He flies, or Getic desert, and quaffs milk
  29. With horse-blood curdled. Seest one far afield
  30. Oft to the shade's mild covert win, or pull
  31. The grass tops listlessly, or hindmost lag,
  32. Or, browsing, cast her down amid the plain,
  33. At night retire belated and alone;
  34. With quick knife check the mischief, ere it creep
  35. With dire contagion through the unwary herd.
  36. Less thick and fast the whirlwind scours the main
  37. With tempest in its wake, than swarm the plagues
  38. Of cattle; nor seize they single lives alone,
  39. But sudden clear whole feeding grounds, the flock
  40. With all its promise, and extirpate the breed.
  41. Well would he trow it who, so long after, still
  42. High Alps and Noric hill-forts should behold,
  43. And Iapydian Timavus' fields,
  44. Ay, still behold the shepherds' realms a waste,
  45. And far and wide the lawns untenanted.